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Subject: [rendezvous]Rendez-vous 98 with Scott Plous, May 3
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Rendez-vous 98
Thursday, May 3 , 2001
Rendez-vous with Scott Plous
Webmaster of www.joechemo.org
Professor of psychology at Wesleyan University
Middletown, Connecticut, USA
splous@mail.wesleyan.edu
By Philippe Boucher
PB : Thank you Scott for accepting our rendez-vous.
May I ask you to introduce yourself?
Scott Plous : I'm Scott Plous, a professor of psychology at Wesleyan
University in Connecticut. My area of expertise is social psychology -- the
study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another.
My connection to tobacco control is more personal than professional.
Tobacco addiction nearly killed my father and was also a serious problem
for my sister.
Q1. In your new site Joechemo.org you say that Joe Chemo is a graphic
creation of adbusters. Did someone in particular create the image and what is
your personal connection with this cartoon?
S P : I came up with the idea of Joe Chemo in the mid-1990s, and I pitched
the idea to Adbusters magazine. Adbusters liked the concept and had one of
their artists render an image of Joe. The reaction was so positive that
they subsequently published two other renderings, both of which can be seen
on the JoeChemo.org web site. In fact, visitors to the site can send their
favorite Joe Chemo image to a friend, family member, or coworker as a free
electronic postcard.
Q2. Although this cartoon was created in 96 and has been reprinted in various
occasions I assume it is still much less known than its now defunct (at least
in the US) Reynolds counterpart. With this site you are trying to increase
the dissemination of those images. Did you try to involve other
organizations? like WHO, the big voluntary agencies, health departments?
S P : Unfortunately, Joe Chemo will never be as well known as the R.J.
Reynolds' Joe Camel character. Joe Camel is one of the most famous smoking
mascots of all time, perhaps second only to the Marlboro Man.
A 1991 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association
found that more than 90% of six-year-olds were able to match Joe Camel with a
picture of a cigarette, making him as well-known as Mickey Mouse.
At the same time, Joe Chemo is certainly becoming more well known over
time. Since 1996, Joe Chemo has appeared in or been mentioned by the
Associated Press, Time, Newsweek, the Washington Post, the Wall Street
Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Business Week, AdWeek, ABC and NBC
television news, PBS, and other media outlets.
In addition, some health departments have made excellent use of Joe Chemo.
For example, the Washington State Department of Health bought 10,000 Joe
Chemo posters from Adbusters and placed them in schools all over the state.
I would be delighted if WHO, the CDC, or any other group or agency were
interested in using Joe Chemo as a vehicle to reduce smoking.
Q3. Today Camel ads are not cartoon like any longer. Is Joe Chemo still
relevant? What about countering the new cigarette ads? any ideas?
S P : RJ Reynolds' Joe Camel character will be well known for years to come,
but eventually, his fame will start to fade. Meanwhile, the relevance of Joe
Chemo will persist as long as there is a link between smoking and the need
for chemotherapy.
As for other counter-advertisements, the JoeChemo.org web site does include
Winston and Kool cigarette parodies as part of an interactive feature in
which visitors are able to test their "Tobacco IQ." And the JoeChemo.org
site has links to other web sites with counter ads, such as adbusters.org,
badvertising.org, and thetruth.com. These groups have designed a number of
hard-hitting counter ads.
Q4 . Having completed your tobacco IQ test, your question about a Winston ad
relates directly to my previous question and triggers a suggestion :
could'nt/shouldn't all the new cigarette ads be right away monitored,
analyzed/criticized the way you did for this Winston ad?
Isn't that a task for a University, bringing together psychologists,
graphists, communications specialists?
S P : I think you're right, and in fact, many universities are starting to
emphasize the importance of media literacy. At my own institution, Wesleyan
University, students are able to take courses that focus on how to read
"nonverbal texts." This kind of literacy is essential for people growing up
in an image-intensive environment, if for no other reason than to avoid
being easily manipulated.
Q5. Back to the graphics. If Joe Chemo is a creative anti-tobacco image where
are the others? Don't you think the public health community has been very
weak graphically? how do you explain that lack of good cartoons, posters?
lack of connection with the artistic community while the industry is actively
courting them?
What solutions would you propose?
S P : Actually, I've seen some wonderfully creative anti-tobacco images, but
it would be great to have even more images out there. Deceptive advertising
images that link cigarettes with sex appeal need to be replaced with
truthful images that link cigarettes with bad breath, impotence, rain
forest destruction, and other consequences that matter to young people.
Ideally, these consequences should be immediate rather than long-range,
they should be vivid, and they should be hard to avoid or deny.
Q6. Is there anything else you would like to add?
S P : I appreciate the invitation to discuss the JoeChemo.org web site, and I
would like to invite your readers to stop by for a visit. The site contains
much more than I can mention here, including:
* Information on how to book a full-body Joe Chemo costume for special
events
* Anti-smoking classroom exercises and video recommendations
* Tips for health care professionals, business owners, and smokers who
want to quit
Visitors can even get a personalized "Smoke-o-Scope" in which Joe Chemo
tells their future!
I hope this resource will be useful to the tobacco control community, and I
want to thank everyone who is involved in this struggle. Secondhand smoke
alone kills more Americans each year than the number of U.S. soldiers who
died during the entire Vietnam War, so this is a very, very important issue.
PB: Thank you Scott for taking the time to be with us today.
Rendez-vous is supported by a contract from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
This document's URL is: http://www.tobacco.org/News/rendezvous/plous.html
Return To: Philippe Boucher's Rendez-Vous Page
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